Adoremus Bulletin - March 2019 Issue

Adoremus Bulletin For the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy

MARCH 2019

News & Views

Vol. XXIV, No. 6

What Became of the Spirit of the Liturgy?

Implementation of Sacrosanctum Concilium 1963–1965

Adoremus PO Box 385 La Crosse, WI 54602-0385

Non- Profit Organization U.S. Postage PAID Madelia, MN Permit No. 4

Gallup, NM (CNA/EWTN News)— Bishop James Wall of Gallup has announced in a pastoral letter the restoration of the order of the sacraments of initiation in the mission diocese.

Once the new policy is implemented, children will receive Confirmation and First Holy Communion in the same Mass, at around the age of 7 or 8.

“Receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation long after the reception of Holy Communion tends to weaken the understanding of the bond and relationship that the Sacraments of Initiation have with one another,” Bishop Wall wrote in his February 11 pastoral letter The Gift of the Father.

“Because the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation lead the faithful to the culmination of their initiation into the Christian Life in Holy Communion, the practice of postponing the reception of Confirmation until the teenage years has not always been beneficial,” he noted.

The bishop added that “An alarming percentage of our Catholic children who were baptized and received First Holy Communion do not continue their formation for the Sacrament of Confirmation, and in too many cases never receive the Sacrament. As your shepherd, I believe it is important for our children, before they reach their adolescent years, to receive the strength of this important Sacrament.”

The pastoral change in the Diocese of Gallup follows that of several other local Churches in the U.S. Commending such a change in the Diocese of Manchester in 2017 as “a praiseworthy practice,” Rita Ferrone Please see INITIATION on next page

AB/MANHHAI AT FLICKR

Gallup Diocese Restores Order of Sacraments of Initiation

“In the restoration and promotion of the sacred liturgy, this full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered before all else…. Yet it would be futile to entertain any hopes of realizing this unless the pastors themselves, in the first place, become thoroughly imbued with the spirit and power of the liturgy, and undertake to give instruction about it” (SC, 14; emphasis added). Though the earlier parts of paragraph 14 are quoted in virtually every discussion of liturgical reform, the second sentence above is rarely cited, even though the Council Fathers are quite emphatic here.

By Susan Benofy

C

onsidering that so much of the debate about liturgy today is concerned with the rite of Mass itself—Ordinary vs. Extraordinary form, or the merits of proposed changes in the rite—the following statement from a book by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI) may be surprising: “The crisis in liturgy (and hence in the Church) in which we find ourselves has very little to do with the change from the old to the new liturgical books.… [T]here is a profound disagreement about the very nature of the liturgical celebration…. The basic concepts of the new view are creativity, freedom, celebration and community.”1

AB

Adoremus Bulletin MARCH 2019

Possibly more surprising is that proponents of the “new view” make similar statements. For example, liturgist Ralph Keifer said, “Considered from the perspective of the official texts, liturgical reform has meant only a modest revision of the Roman rite mass.… Yet this modest change of ceremony has helped to precipitate a revolution in our ritual.”2 But if changes in the rite did not cause the “revolution,” what did? In his remarks to the Roman Curia in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of larger interpretive conflicts concerning the Second Vatican Council. “The problems in its implementation,” he said, “arose from the fact that two contrary hermeneutics came face to face and quarreled with each other.

One caused confusion, the other,

silently but more and more visibly, bore and is bearing fruit.” The first, a “hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture” saw sharp contrasts between the tradition and the post-conciliar Church, invoking a so-called “spirit of the Council” divorced from the actual texts of the Council. The second hermeneutic, one of “reform and renewal,” read the conciliar texts and the post-conciliar reform in continuity with what came before, even while adapting ecclesial life, when and where possible, to modern conditions.

The liturgy—in its practice, its theology, and its spirit—similarly succumbed to battling hermeneutics.

Changes wrought in the liturgy came about through a divergence in focus

Nature of the Feast What ever happened to liturgical reform? With help from Romano Guardini’s The Spirit of the Liturgy, Susan Benofy offers a spirited case for what true liturgical reform can look like............ 1

the manifest glory of God even more manifest, argues Father Michael Rennier in a whole-cloth account of looking good for God......................... 7

Rescue Me! The life you save may be your own – and Christopher Carstens shows how, in startling terms, the liturgy must be integral, according to St. Gregory of Nyssa, to hope of (re)birth in Christ........................................................................ 3 Clerical Vestments Addressed If clothes make the man, clerical vestments make

Please see SPIRIT on page 4

Year of Living Liturgically Liturgy changes everything – even time is anything but ordinary when lived in the Church’s calendar, says Alexis Kutarna in her review of The Catholic All Year Compendium.........................................................12

News & Views...................................................2 The Rite Questions....................................... 10 Donors & Memorials................................... 11

2 Continued from INITIATION, page 1

wrote in Commonweal that 11 dioceses were then practicing “restored order.”

Bishop Wall opened his letter reflecting on the relationship among the sacraments of initiation: Baptism, Confirmation, and Communion.

Baptism “immerses us into the Divine Trinity,” while the grace of Confirmation “confirms and strengthens the supernatural life we have received in Baptism and it also enables us with its grace to live in a more mature way our lives as Christians giving witness to Christ in all that we do.”

“At the same time, the Sacrament of Confirmation is ordered toward a deeper communion with the Lord and to His Church through this witness to Him, a communion which receives its greatest expression and grace in this life in the sacrament of Holy Communion.”

The bishop noted that he has chosen to restore the original order of the sacraments of initiation “after consultation with the Presbyteral Council and having prayerfully considered it.”

Wall then discussed the historical background of the temporal order of the sacraments of initiation, noting that in the first 500 years of the Church they “were received together,” and that afterwards Baptism came to be administered in infancy, Confirmation around the age of 7, and Communion around the beginning of adolescence, such that “the order of the sacraments was conserved but they were administered in separate celebrations throughout childhood.”

St. Pius X “decided that it was important for children at a younger age to receive Holy Communion,” and began administering First Communion around the age of 7. “This positive change had the unintended consequence of moving the Sacrament of Confirmation to an older age, thus inverting the original order of the Sacraments of Initiation,” Wall stated.

He added that today a person baptized after reaching the age of reason normally “receives in the same celebration the three Sacraments of Initiation,” but that “up until now, a child who was baptized as an infant would receive Holy Communion at around the age of 8 and receive the sacrament of Confirmation at a later date, sometimes waiting until they are 15 or 16.”

The bishop also discussed the effects of Confirmation, which “gives us an outpouring of the Holy Spirit which strengthens us,” and he cited Divinae consortium naturae, St. Paul VI’s 1971 apostolic constitution on the sacrament.

Teaching about the sacraments, he said: “Although grace builds upon nature and much depends upon the disposition in faith, the piety and charity of the one who receives it, the sacraments work in us in a different way. As long as the recipient does not have any impediment, the sacraments will produce in us their grace on their own.”

“This is important when we consider the age of the reception of the sacraments,” Wall said.

While Confirmation is sometimes called “the Sacrament of Christian maturity,” it “does not require the recipient to be physically mature in order to transmit its grace. On the contrary, the Sacrament brings the recipient into Christian maturity and is given the strength through the Sacrament to live one’s Christian life even in a heroic way.”

“Although the recipient of the Sacrament always must seek to remove obstacles to grace in his or her life and cooperate with the strength of the grace that is offered to the individual, the power of the sacraments to transform one’s life has been well established.”

Noting that “countless young children have shown the witness of heroic virtue,” Wall said that “it has become all the more important” for young Christians, given the challenges they face in today’s world, “to receive the strength of the Sacrament of Confirmation as soon as possible to assist them.”

Citing St. Paul VI, Bishop Wall said that Confirmation’s link with the Eucharist “will be emphasized by uniting the Sacrament of Confirmation with the reception of the First Holy Communion in the same celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass.”

The policy change in the Gallup diocese will be gradually implemented over the next three years, with a “progressive lowering of the age,” until preparation for the reception of Confirmation and First Communion will begin in third grade.

“There will always be the possibility of children older than 3rd grade seeking the Sacrament, especially those who move into our diocese from other areas, as well as adults who seek the reception of Confirmation,” he noted. “For this reason, there will have to be available an intergenerational model of catechesis or catechists prepared to take on classes of different age groups to prepare them for Confirmation.”

The sacraments, the bishop reflected, “are an introduction and aids to living an authentically Christlike life, to prepare ourselves for our passage into our longed-for eternal life.”

Adoremus Bulletin, March 2019

NEWS & VIEWS

Pope to Divine Worship Congregation: Liturgy Is not ‘Styles, Recipes, Trends’

By Hannah Brockhaus

Vatican City (CNA/EWTN News)—The liturgy, Pope Francis said on February 14, cannot be reduced to a matter of taste, becoming the subject of ideological polarization, because it is a primary way Catholics encounter the Lord.

There is a risk with the liturgy of falling into a “past that no longer exists or of escaping into a presumed future,” the pope told members of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

“The starting point is instead to recognize the reality of the sacred liturgy, a living treasure that cannot be reduced to styles, recipes and trends, but should be welcomed with docility and promoted with love, as irreplaceable nourishment for the organic growth of the People of God,” he continued.

Francis also emphasized that the liturgy is not a “doit-yourself ” zone and urged the Vatican officials, “as in other areas of ecclesial life,” to avoid “ideological polarizations” and an attitude of “perpetual dialectics” against those with differing ideas about the liturgy.

He also recalled his statement in Evangelii Gaudium “that reality is more important than the idea.”

“When we look back to nostalgic past tendencies or wish to impose them again, there is the risk of placing the part before the whole, the ‘I’ before the People of God, the abstract before the concrete, ideology before communion and, fundamentally, the worldly before the spiritual,” Francis asserted.

Meeting the congregation during their February 12-15 plenary assembly, Pope Francis addressed the importance of the Church’s liturgy, of having good collaboration between the Vatican congregation and bishops’ conferences, and of developing a proper liturgical sense in Catholics.

“The liturgy is in fact the main road through which Christian life passes through every phase of its growth,” Francis said. “You therefore have before you a great and beautiful task: to work so that the People of God rediscovers the beauty of meeting the Lord in the celebration of his mysteries.”

The pope noted that the plenary falls 50 years since St. Paul VI reorganized the Congregation for the Discipline of the Sacraments “in order to give shape to the renewal desired by the Second Vatican Council.

It was a matter of publishing the liturgical books according to the criteria and decisions of the Council Fathers, with a view to fostering, in the People of God, ‘active, conscious and pious’ participation in the mysteries of Christ.”

He asserted that “the praying tradition of the Church needed renewed expressions, without losing anything of its millennial wealth, even rediscovering the treasures of its origins,” and noted that it was also in 1969 that the General Roman Calendar was changed and the new Roman Missal was promulgated, calling them “the first steps of a journey, to be continued with wise constancy.”

Francis added that “it is not enough to change the liturgical books to improve the quality of the liturgy.”

He argued that proper liturgical formation of both clergy and laity is fundamental, and quoted from Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Second Vatican Council’s 1963 constitution on the sacred liturgy.

Though necessary, just providing information about liturgical books is not an adequate liturgical education, he continued, even with a view toward preserving the dutiful fulfillment of the ritual disciplines.

“In order for the liturgy to fulfill its formative and transforming function, it is necessary that pastors and the laity be brought to grasp its meaning and symbolic language, including art, song and music at the service of the celebrated mystery, even silence,” he stated.

He pointed to mystagogy as a suitable way to enter into the mystery of the liturgy, “in the living encounter with the crucified and risen Lord”; he pointed to the Catechism of the Catholic Church as an example of a book that illustrates the liturgy in this manner.

Referencing the title of the congregation’s plenary

Adoremus Bulletin

Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy

Adoremus Bulletin (ISSN 1088-8233) is published seven times a year by Adoremus—Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy, in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Adoremus is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation of the State of California. Non-profit periodicals postage paid at various US mailing offices.

Change service requested.

Adoremus—Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy was established in June 1995 to promote authentic reform of the Liturgy of the Roman Rite in accordance with the Second Vatican Council’s decree on the Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium. Adoremus Bulletin is sent on request to members of Adoremus. Suggested donation: $40 per year, US; $45 foreign.

assembly, “the liturgical formation of the People of God,” he said the task awaiting them is “essentially that of spreading the splendor of the living mystery of the Lord, manifested in the liturgy, in the People of God.” “To speak of the liturgical formation of the People of God means first of all to become aware of the irreplaceable role that the liturgy plays in the Church and for the Church,” he stated.

“And then concretely help the People of God to better internalize the prayer of the Church, to love it as an experience of meeting with the Lord and with the brothers and, in light of this, to rediscover its contents and observe its rites.”

Love God? Let Your Music Aim High, Archbishop Sample Says Portland, OR (CNA/EWTN News)—Sacred music has a special role in the Catholic liturgy, and Archbishop Alexander Sample of Portland in Oregon has written a pastoral letter reflecting on how Catholics can help provide the best music for Mass.

“We should always aim high to offer God the best and the most beautiful music of which we are capable,” Archbishop Sample said. Mass requires an “art of celebrating” [ars celebrandi] in which perhaps nothing is more important than the place of sacred music.

Citing a sermon of St. Augustine, he said, “The new man sings a new song. Singing is an expression of joy and, if we consider the matter, an expression of love.”

The archbishop’s pastoral letter, “Sing to the Lord a New Song,” was dated January 25, the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. Archbishop Sample voiced hope that the letter will be well received in the archdiocese and help advance “an authentic renewal of the Sacred Liturgy according to the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and the mind of the Church.”

Sacred music has a twofold purpose: “the glory of God and the sanctification of the faithful.” This has serious implications for its place in divine worship.

Archbishop Sample’s pastoral letter traces teachings about sacred music from various popes and councils of the Church.

Benedict XVI said that the Church has created, and still creates “music and songs which represent a rich patrimony of faith and love.” This heritage “must not be lost.”

Pope Francis, too, has lamented “a certain mediocrity, superficiality and banality” in liturgical celebrations that acts to the detriment of their “beauty and intensity.” According to Archbishop Sample, there are “serious challenges in our own day” for efforts to seek to renew the liturgy “in a way that respects, fosters and promotes the true nature of the Mass itself.”

He criticized the reduction of music selection at Mass to “a matter of subjective ‘taste.’” Liturgical music is not simply “an addendum to worship” or something external added on to the form and structure of Mass.

“Rather, sacred music is an essential element of worship itself,” he said. “It is an art form which takes its life and purpose from the Sacred Liturgy and is part of its very structure.”

Because sacred music is so essential, Catholics must reject the common idea that four songs can be chosen and “tacked on.” Sacred music’s role is “to help us sing and pray the texts of the Mass itself, not just ornament it.”

Sacred music, rightly understood, has three qualities of “sanctity, beauty and universality.”

Quoting St. Pius X, Archbishop Sample said sacred music must “exclude all profanity not only in itself, but in the manner in which it is presented by those who execute it.” The documents of the Second Vatican Council say sacred music is more holy the more closely connected it is with the liturgical action, “whether it adds delight to prayer, fosters unity of minds, or confers greater solemnity upon the sacred rites.”

Everything associated with the Mass must be beautiful, to reflect “the infinite beauty and goodness of the God we worship.” Pope Francis has said liturgical and sacred music can be “a powerful Please see NEWS & VIEWS page 9 EDITOR - PUBLISHER: Christopher Carstens MANAGING EDITOR: Joseph O’Brien CONTENT MANAGER: Jeremy Priest GRAPHIC DESIGNER: Danelle Bjornson OFFICE MANAGER: Elizabeth Gallagher PHONE: 608.521.0385 WEBSITE: www.adoremus.org MEMBERSHIP REQUESTS & CHANGE OF ADDRESS: info@adoremus.org LETTERS TO THE EDITOR P.O. Box 385 La Crosse, WI 54602-0385 editor@adoremus.org

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE The Rev. Jerry Pokorsky = Helen Hull Hitchcock The Rev. Joseph Fessio, SJ

Contents copyright © 2019 by ADOREMUS. All rights reserved.

Adoremus Bulletin, March 2019

We Are Our Own Parents: Let Us Not Abort Ourselves

3

By Christopher Carstens

AB/TREE OF LIFE BY GADDI (D.1366) AT WIKIMEDIA.

E

nglish humorist P.G. Wodehouse (d.1975) has authored a number of the English language’s funniest books, among them, Right Ho, Jeeves (1934). At one point in this narrative, the story’s main character, perennial bachelor Bertie Wooster tries to rekindle the dead sentiments of love in his cousin Angela toward her former fiancé, Tuppy Glossop.

Wooster’s strategy is to “roast” Glossop to Angela, in hopes that she will—“like a mother tigress”—come to his defense, thus renewing lost love. Bertie begins the disjunctive dialogue with his cousin by recalling his childhood friend’s vulgar manners during their schooldays: “‘Uncouth’ about sums it up. I doubt if I’ve ever seen an uncouther kid than this Glossop. Ask anyone who knew him in those days to describe him in a word, and the word they will use is ‘uncouth’. And he’s just the same today. It’s the old story. The boy is the father of the man.”

She appeared not to have heard.

“The boy,” I repeated, not wishing her to miss that one, “is the father of the man.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about this Glossop.”

“I thought you said something about somebody’s father.”

“I said the boy was the father of the man.”

“What boy?”

“The boy Glossop.”

“He hasn’t got a father.”

“I never said he had. I said he was the father of the boy—or, rather, of the man.”

“What man?”

I saw that the conversation had reached a point where, unless care was taken, we should be muddled.

“The point I am trying to make,” I said, “is that the boy Glossop is the father of the man Glossop. In other words, each loathsome fault and blemish that led the boy Glossop to be frowned upon by his fellows is present in the man Glossop, and causes him—I am speaking now of the man Glossop—to be a hissing and a byword….”

Now, if you will permit a quick shift from the mundane to the sublime, I was reminded of Wooster’s convoluted “the boy is the father of the man” speech to his cousin when coming across the following passage from St. Gregory of Nyssa (who apparently anticipates P.G. Wodehouse). Commenting on Ecclesiastes’s meditation on all things in due season (“a time to be born, and a time to die,” etc.), St. Gregory says: “It seems to me that the birth referred to here is our salvation, as is suggested by the prophet Isaiah.

This reaches its full term and is not stillborn when, having been conceived by the fear of God, the soul’s own birth pangs bring it to the light of day. We are in a sense our own parents, and we give birth to ourselves by our own free choice of what is good. [My emphasis] Such a choice becomes possible for us when we have received God into ourselves and have become children of God, children of the Most High. On the other hand, if what the Apostle calls the form of Christ has not been produced in us, we abort ourselves. The man of God must reach maturity” (Office of Readings, Tuesday of the 7th Week in Ordinary Time).

St. Gregory uses striking language and addresses many current aspects of our sad state. The Church father says that we “abort ourselves” by not conforming ourselves to Christ. Recent pro-abortion legislation in New York and Virginia reveals that St. Gregory’s words have for citizens of the United States a tragic, literal, and obvious reality. Will we parents abort ourselves— our country—out of existence? Moral turpitude and spiritual turpitude are two sides of the same coin, after all.

But of course St. Gregory is speaking here principally of spiritual parentage, birth, and maturity. “We are in a sense our own parents,” he writes, “and we give birth to ourselves by our own free choice of what is good.”

Liturgically speaking, in today’s ritual celebrations, what are we giving life to? We must bear in mind, of course, that the Trinity and the Church are the liturgy’s principal agents of bringing that life into existence.

Nonetheless, how are we as celebrants and participants in the liturgy cooperating with the grace that allows us to bring forth our spiritual birth in Christ? Is the Church’s liturgical life abundant and vibrant? Or is it dying and anemic?

Every individual, of course, can answer this about himself. But collectively, how do we respond? Pew Surveys and pew counts, while not the only indicators, offer some sobering answers. A recent Pew survey indicates that less than 36 percent of adults attend church services in the U.S., and news for Catholics in that same study is not much better—reporting that only a dismal 39 percent of Catholics attend Mass once a week.

Such numbers add up to a lack of concern for our spiritual maturity. How do we, who are “our own parents,” foster not “stillborn” celebrations but long-

Bringing abundant life to ourselves and our children demands liturgical celebrations that, like a tree, rest upon organic and strong roots sunk into “the soil of tradition.”

NOVENA PRAYER FOR THE RENEWAL OF THE SACRED LITURGY Lord Jesus, You have established the Church, loved her, and given yourself up for her: we beseech you to watch over her and direct her worship, that her sacraments may nourish true faith, and may lead all believers to a deeper understanding of God’s will. Amen. lasting liturgical life? St. Gregory’s chilling words are worth repeating: “[I]f what the Apostle calls the form of Christ has not been produced in us, we abort ourselves.

The man of God must reach maturity.” But Catholics have within their grasp the means to rescue the precious gift of faith. The Church’s liturgy manifests “the form of Christ” to all who participate—or at least it is supposed to. If it does not, the fault lies not with the inherent efficacy of the liturgy, but with the ministers and participants and how they celebrate it.

In his 1988 Apostolic Letter Vicesimus Quintus Annus (VQA), John Paul II reflected on the quarter of a century which had passed since the Second Vatican Council promulgated its reforms. The late pontiff notes that the

“ The seed was sown; it has known the rigors of winter, but the seed has sprouted, and become a tree. It is a matter of the organic growth of a tree becoming ever stronger the deeper it sinks its roots into the soil of tradition.” — Pope John Paul II efforts of the post-conciliar Church “have been directed towards bringing to maturity in the sense of movement and of life the fruitful seeds which the Fathers of the Ecumenical Council, nourished by the word of God, cast upon the good soil (cf. Mt 13:8, 23), that is, their authoritative teaching and pastoral decisions’” (VQA, 3; my emphasis). As 25 years has grown into 60 years, does the liturgy continue to mature—and mature us in the faith? Or is it, and its celebrants, stuck in rebellious adolescence, rejecting its lineage?

The Holy Father concluded his 1988 letter with some insights for us “parents” of our own faith. “The seed was sown; it has known the rigors of winter, but the seed has sprouted, and become a tree. It is a matter of the organic growth of a tree becoming ever stronger the deeper it sinks its roots into the soil of tradition” (23).

May today’s liturgies bear tomorrow’s fruit—allowing us and our flesh-and-blood children to become saints—by organic growth rooted deeply and strongly in tradition.

Let us not, like Tuppy Glossop, become “a hissing and a byword.”

Adoremus Bulletin, March 2019

AB/CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY

4

The Second Vatican Council and the earlier Liturgical Movement intended something very different from what the “new view” had in mind. On December 25, 1961, Pope John XXIII officially convoked the Second Vatican Council with the Apostolic Constitution Humanae Salutis, in which he expressed the hope that the Council “imbues with Christian light and penetrates with fervent spiritual energy not only into the depths of souls but also into the whole realm of human activities.”

Continued from SPIRIT, page 1 on what the liturgy essentially is. Two predominant views of the liturgy emerged after the Council, and it is this divergence which has created the unhealthy tension that the faithful experience in “liturgical politics” even today. The first of these views, which is more sympathetic to tradition, holds that there is an objective pattern of worship which all liturgy embraces.

The second is more subjective and holds that the liturgy is most perfectly realized when tailored to the communal experience of worship. Benedict and Kiefer both see the “spirit of liturgy”— be it objective or subjective—as the starting point of post-conciliar renewal.

To appreciate the quarrelling “spirits of the liturgy,” and to appreciate what the Council Father’s themselves held it to be, we need not go back far in Church history to see that the objective view is the correct view.

Texts of the Council Consider what the Council itself, in its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium (SC)), saw as crucial to liturgical reform: “In the restoration and promotion of the sacred liturgy, this full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered before all else; for it is the primary and indispensable source from which the faithful are to derive the true Christian spirit…. Yet it would be futile to entertain any hopes of realizing this unless the pastors themselves, in the first place, become thoroughly imbued with the spirit and power of the liturgy, and undertake to give instruction about it” (SC, 14).

Though the earlier parts of paragraph 14 are quoted in virtually every discussion of liturgical reform, the second sentence above is rarely cited, even though the Constitution is quite emphatic here.

The Council did not give specific details about what constituted this true “spirit of the liturgy.” The phrase had appeared in Pope Pius XI’s 1928 apostolic constitution Divini Cultus and in Pope Pius XII’s 1948 encyclical letter Mediator Dei. The expression also brings to mind two books of that title. The more recent, a 2000 book by Cardinal

Ratzinger,3 was inspired by Romano Guardini’s 1918 book of the same name.4 Ratzinger says that Guardini’s book The Spirit of the Liturgy “inaugurated the Liturgical Movement in Germany.

Its contribution was decisive. It helped us to rediscover the liturgy in all its beauty…and time-transcending grandeur…as the prayer of the Church, …guided by the Holy Spirit himself….”5 Since it is generally agreed that the Liturgical Movement, in turn, influenced the Council’s reform of the liturgy, it seems reasonable to take Guardini’s 1918 book as a guide to the spirit of the liturgy that Sacrosanctum Concilium considered so crucial.

Objective Spirit Guardini lays great stress on the slow development of the liturgy through time. Though influenced by a variety of cultures, it does not reflect any single one, but “is the supreme example of an objectively established rule of spiritual life.” Furthermore, he states, “The primary and exclusive aim of the liturgy is not the expression of the individual’s reverence and worship of God…. In the liturgy God is to be honored by the body of the faithful…. It is important that this objective nature of the liturgy should be fully understood.”6 As a consequence of this objectivity, the liturgy “is a school of religious training and development to the Catholic who rightly understands it.”7 However, Guardini also says, the liturgy is difficult to adapt to modern man, who often finds it artificial and too formal, and prefers other forms of prayer which seem to have the advantage “of contemporary, or, at any rate, of congenial origin.”8 But to be appropriate as a prayer for all people, and any situation, the liturgy must be formal, and keep “emotion under the strictest control.”9 The direct expression of emotion in prayer is more appropriate in personal prayer or popular devotions. These are rightly intended to appeal to certain tastes and circumstances, and consequently retain more local characteristics and aim more at individual edification, but they must remain distinct from the liturgy. “There could be no greater mistake than that of discarding

the valuable elements in the spiritual life of the people for the sake of the liturgy, or than the desire of assimilating them to it.”10 The liturgy is celebrated by the whole body of the faithful, not simply the assembled congregation.

It embraces “all the faithful on earth; simultaneously it reaches beyond the bounds of time.”11 Guardini notes that, since the liturgy doesn’t fit any personality type exactly, all must sacrifice some of their own inclinations to properly enter into it. And, though liturgy requires fellowship, this does not mean ordinary social interaction. “[T]he union of the members is not directly accomplished from man to man. It is accomplished by and in their joint aim, goal, and spiritual resting place—God—by their identical creed, sacrifice and sacraments.”12

“ Implementing ‘advanced positions’ arguably changed people’s experience of the liturgy (as the liturgists intended) more than the changes actually authorized

by Sacrosanctum Concilium and the earliest implementing documents.”

Guardini insists that liturgical prayer “must spring from the fullness of truth.

It is only truth—or dogma, to give it its other name—which can make prayer efficacious.”13 Revolutionary Spirit Now consider how the “revolution” in the liturgy was brought about. According to Keifer: “The real revolution was that the agents of reform…effectively abolished the distinction between sanctuary and nave.”14 They relocated “the place of the holy in the midst of

the assembly,”15 placing the people— not God—at the center of the liturgy, and shifting the focus of prayer. Kiefer claims that “liturgical prayer is not simply speech in common addressed to God. Rather it is speech to one another addressed in God’s ‘overhearing.’”16 Who were these “agents of reform” Keifer mentions? Many were speakers and writers, associated with liturgical publications and organizations, especially the Liturgical Conference.

This organization was very influential around the time of the Council through its publications, annual conferences (called Liturgical Weeks) and numerous workshops.17 A series of books, The Parish Worship Program,18 was planned the very week that Sacrosanctum Concilium was approved by the Council, and according to its then-president, Father Gerard Sloyan, the series was designed to communicate the change in spirit that he believed was the most important impending change in the liturgy. Two prominent members of the Liturgical Conference were Father (later Monsignor) Frederick McManus, who served several terms as its president, and Father Godfrey Diekmann, OSB (of St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, MN), a member of the Conference’s board and a frequent speaker at Liturgical Weeks.19 They gave many talks on Sacrosanctum Concilium, especially for priests, between sessions of the Council.20 Others considered in this article include Clement McNaspy, SJ, another board member of the Liturgical Conference, and Father Robert Hovda of Fargo, ND, editor of its publications from 1965–1978.21 The contrast between this “new spirit” expressed in their work and Guardini’s is striking.

One revolutionary change in spirit is already evident in a 1963 book of essays, Sunday Morning Crisis: Renewal in Catholic Worship, which proclaimed on its cover: “Here, for the first time, is what liturgical renewal means to you.”22 In his Introduction, Father Hovda asserts, like Kiefer, that liturgy is primarily communal and only secondarily a matter of the worship owed to God: “[I]t is through relating to one another before God…that Christians properly worship and accomplish the proper purpose of worship. The following essays hope to help make that relating a matter of common Sunday morning experience.”23 Likewise, McManus, in his essay in this volume,24 claims that during the first session of Vatican II the Council Fathers approved a liturgical reform based on three principles: the communal nature of the liturgy, its pastoral purpose, and its adaptability. (Note how closely these correspond to Cardinal Ratzinger’s description of the “new view.”) The pastoral purpose, McManus says, means that changes in the liturgy will be dictated by the needs of the people, and can no longer conform to a universal pattern which looks first to the proper objective worship of God. Therefore, since there is a great diversity of cultures in the world, the liturgy “must match this diversity and be open, always open, to change and growth….

Times and customs change, so must the ways of worship.”25 But the emphasis on direct communication between people “radically localizes the liturgy,” as Keifer pointed out. Local languages and styles of music replace worldwide use of Latin and Gregorian chant, for example. “This contributes effectively to a fading of the Roman, and hence, the papal image that the liturgy once carried. This is the reason why appeals to outside authority about details of practice are experienced as so incongruous and inappropriate now.”26 Please see SPIRIT, page 5

Adoremus Bulletin, March 2019 Continued from SPIRIT, page 4 In addition, this emphasis on the local produces the very situation Guardini warned against: the loss of the necessary distinction between liturgy and devotions. In fact, contrary to Sacrosanctum Concilium,27 these liturgists scorned devotions, anticipating their disappearance. Even Eucharistic devotion will decline, McManus predicts in an essay in the 1963 volume The Revival of the Liturgy: “with the devotion of the people now directed to the eucharistic meal, the accidentals in the Eucharistic cult outside Mass will not flourish so widely.”28 In contrast to the gradual development of the liturgy in the past, and ignoring the Council’s call for “careful investigation into each part of the liturgy which is to be revised” (SC, 23), these liturgists were in a great hurry to implement their views. In fact, McManus insists that “progressives” must not compromise but “must take more advanced positions from the beginning…to leave room for concession or bargain.”29 “If too little is sought or attempted, doors now open may be shut.”30

of a church building is to facilitate the “common experience of community.”36 Consequently, he insists that churches must not be “grandiose ‘monuments to God’s glory,’”37 but rather designed

“ The optional practice of celebrating Mass facing the people became almost universal. Visually, in accordance with the ‘new views’ that Guardini sought to avoid and Pope Benedict roundly criticized, this tended to focus the liturgy on the people.” so that each person can experience “a meaningful function in the common action. This would unquestionably rule out the long rectangle, the one shape of a church that has been most customary.”38 He also interprets a second higher principle—emphasis on the paschal mysteries—as requiring personal and communal experience. This can be facilitated, he suggests, by a standing posture after the Consecration and during the reception of Holy Communion.

AB/WIKIPEDIA

Premature Interpretation Both Sunday Morning Crisis and The Revival of the Liturgy have imprimaturs dating from the summer of 1963, before the second session of Vatican II had even begun. So these essays interpreted Sacrosanctum Concilium before it was eventually promulgated on December 4, 1963, or even fully

In a 1964 essay, Father McNaspy notes that all known religions distinguish between the sacred and the profane. The sacred is “apart, separate….

The holy is what one does not touch, does not discuss, often…does not even pronounce.”31 But since in modern times we stress rationality over mystery, he cautions against “too casual an acceptance of the terms ‘sacral’ or ‘holy’”32 and rejects the traditional forms that express it. For example, Romanesque and Gothic architecture and Gregorian chant are, he admits, “apart” today. But instead of considering these ancient forms, as Guardini does, to be part of a gradually developing objective pattern, McNaspy associates them exclusively with the past and believes their use today is actually a danger: “Does it not suggest that religion is simply quaint, archaic, and irrelevant?”33 Diekmann also rejects traditional forms of architecture in an essay on this subject. Although not published until 1965, it is clear from the text that the essay was written before September 1964 in anticipation of the Vatican instructions on the arrangement of churches found in Inter Oecumenici.

Diekmann even admits that it may seem premature to offer details, as he does, before the official document is promulgated. But he believes his procedure is justified since he intends simply to “draw what seem reasonable deductions from the altiora principia (“higher principles”) contained in the Constitu-

Unlike devotional prayer, the liturgy has an objective and universal spirit, because it renders present in sacramental signs history’s eternal truth, the Paschal Mystery. As Guardini writes in The Spirit of the Liturgy, “The primary and exclusive aim of the liturgy is not the expression of the individual’s reverence and worship for God…. It does not even rest with the collective groups, composed of numerous individuals, who periodically achieve a limited and intermittent unity in their capacity as the congregation of a church. The liturgical entity consists rather of the united body of the faithful as such—the Church—a body which infinitely outnumbers the mere congregation…. It is important that this objective nature of the liturgy should be fully understood. Here the Catholic conception of worship in common sharply differs from the Protestant, which is predominatingly individualistic.”

discussed at the Council. Implementing “advanced positions” arguably changed people’s experience of the liturgy (as the liturgists intended) more than the changes actually authorized by Sacrosanctum Concilium and the earliest implementing documents. Directing the focus of the liturgy to the assembly, they tended to desacralize the liturgy.

tion.”34 He argues that ecclesia, meaning church, was first applied exclusively to the assembly, and only later to the church building: “The ecclesia, as worshiping People of God, most effectively manifesting the infinite mystery of the Church, ranks among the altiora principia of the Constitution.”35 From this he concludes that the primary purpose

Since he believes that the Communion rail “has come to connote…a wall of separation from the sanctuary,” he recommends distribution to standing communicants at Communion “stations” as “paradoxically, both more reverent and swift.”39 He also believes the altar should be free-standing with the

5

priest facing the people. Visually obstructive objects, including the crucifix, should be removed. As to other images, he tells us: “it may be ‘the better part’ for the present to be prudently and orthodoxally iconoclastic.”40 The Vatican’s Instruction, entitled Inter Oecumenici, when it was promulgated on September 26, 1964, lacked many of the provisions Diekmann anticipated. It did provide that the main altar “should preferably be free-standing to permit celebration facing the people” (§ 91, emphasis added). But it spoke of the “cross and candlesticks required on the altar” (§ 94, emphasis added). It said nothing about removing the Communion rail, standing for Holy Communion, or the need for the church building to facilitate the experience of community.

Even though Diekmann’s 1964 predictions so often went beyond, or even contradicted the subsequently released Inter Oecumenici, McManus praised Diekmann’s essay in a 1965 address to 500 architects and church building commission members. Diekmann was writing before the promulgation of the 1964 Instruction, McManus said, but added that “it is valid now and will be as valuable in the future. The meaning of norms must be sought in the supporting reasons, for which we must look to the commentators.”41 While the Instruction’s norms may seem legalistic, McManus said, they allow “for the greatest creativity,” aim “to restore the meaning of the Eucharist as community action,” and recognize that “there should be diversity, adaptation to local circumstances and occasions.”42 That is, he insists this Instruction supports the “new view.”

Liturgical Changes Inter Oecumenici also included some changes in the rite of Mass. Among the most obvious were permission for vernacular recitation (or singing) of most prayers said by the people and priest (together or in dialog) and the new formula for distributing Holy Communion (Corpus Christi). A few of the prayers said by the priest—formerly said in silence—were to be said aloud, and readings were proclaimed in the vernacular at a lectern facing the people.

Laymen could read those scriptural selections before the priest proclaimed the Gospel. Some texts from the Mass were altogether omitted, such as Psalm 42 (from the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar), the Last Gospel (John 1:114) and the Leonine prayers recited after Mass by priest and people. There also were a few ceremonial changes concerning the sung Mass and incense.

In the U.S. the instruction was implemented on November 29, 1964,43 and that implementation should have entailed only the changes in the rite mentioned above. However, the optional practice of celebrating Mass facing the people also became almost universal.44 Visually, in accordance with the “new views” that Guardini sought to avoid and Pope Benedict roundly criticized, this tended to focus the liturgy on the people. The addition of receiving Communion standing, the removal of Communion rails and statues, as well as the singing of four vernacular hymns (none of which were even mentioned by the Council or the instruction) tended to convey the “new spirit” and made the experience seem more like a “new liturgy.”

The hymn-singing, however, was a continuation of a preconciliar practice which permitted hymns in the vernacular during a low (read) Mass.45 The low Mass was the most common form before the Council, and often preferred by influential liturgists for its “flexibility.”

The pattern of four hymns at low Mass

Please see SPIRIT, page 6

6

Continued from SPIRIT, page 5 was promoted particularly by the Liturgical Conference in the 1950’s,46 and their influential Parish Worship Program47 recommended this as the preferred form of Mass after the Council.

So, though singing by the people was emphasized and occurred at almost all Masses after the Council, the sung (high) Mass, which required the singing of liturgical texts themselves, virtually disappeared.48 At first the hymns were fairly traditional, but soon they were replaced by a secular style of music. This development was promoted by Diekmann in an address to the annual convention of the National Catholic Education Association (NCEA) in April 1965. According to press reports Diekmann “spelled out the task of teaching the Mass to students through participation geared to their way of communicating with each other.”49 Asking how teachers could help the Mass become “subjectively, in the thinking and living of our pupils…, the fount of all holiness…?” he answered: “Quite frankly, I wish I knew.”50 Yet he does not hesitate to make concrete suggestions.

Diekmann seems most concerned that students, allegedly impatient with formality, are bored at Mass, which Sacrosanctum Concilium calls a “celebration.” This word choice, he says, means it should be a “shared festivity” so he suggests that the “experiment and variety” allowed by the “new liturgy” be used to make the student Mass a “lived faith experience” and a “meaningful pleasure to be looked forward to.” Contrary to Guardini’s thoughts on the matter, Diekmann does not suggest that students learn to see the Mass as a “school of religious training,” as Guardini explicitly says,51 nor that they be instructed in the Church’s heritage of sacred music. Instead students must have maximum input on the details of the Mass, including the music. He anticipates the sort of music the students will request, asking, “Are we perhaps sinning against our high-schoolers, depriving them of lawful celebration which, according to their culture… would foster faith, if we exclude folk song [and] spirituals—or ‘Kum ‘ba Ya’”?52 He implicitly answers in the affirmative by proposing what he calls the “hootenanny Mass” for student liturgies in high schools.

The audience of 3,000 Catholic educators, it was reported, responded to this talk with “thunderous applause.”53 That’s All Folk!

Another enthusiast for the folk Mass, Ken Canedo, in his history Keep the Fire Burning,54 traces the early development of liturgical “folk” music by Catholic composers (often seminarians) and the spread of this music (and the idea of congregational input) as it replaced more traditional hymns in schools and colleges throughout the country. This early folk-style music is often rightly criticized for its poor quality,55 but rarely mentioned is the additional problem of the attitude and the “spirit” it introduced into the Mass.

Canedo notes that in the early twentieth century “folk music took root in the cities as a medium of radical thought.”

Some folk singers wrote original songs in folk style, which “directly challenged the establishment.” This eventually “blossomed into the protest-laden radicalism” of the 1960’s.56 Consequently, Canedo writes, the folk Mass “sometimes became a worshipful act of defiance in dioceses that banned it.”57 But the “establishment” being defied here was legitimate Church authority, and the defiance soon extended beyond worship. On January 31, 1966, the New York Times reported: “A group of Uni-

Adoremus Bulletin, March 2019 versity of Detroit students demonstrated yesterday in front of the Archdiocese of Detroit chancery against a ban of a folk-music-style Mass.… Some 50 students marched in freezing weather in front of the Chancery, carrying a sign: ‘We want our Mass.’”58 This music (and the “new spirit”) soon spread to parishes. Instead of the promised experience of community, however, it resulted in the division of the parish into factions, each saying, in effect: “We want our Mass.”

“ The crisis in liturgy (and hence in the Church) in which we find ourselves has very little to do with the change from the old to the new liturgical books.… [T]here is a profound disagreement about the very nature of the liturgical celebration…. The basic concepts of the new view are creativity, freedom, celebration and community.”

Sense and Sentimentality Guardini, decades before, had warned against these very approaches to the liturgy. Diekmann contended that liturgical participation would be enhanced by adaptations intended to increase personal pleasure. But Guardini considers this “sentimentality,” i.e., “the desire to be moved,” as an obstacle to participation. Adapting the Mass to the congregation’s tastes blocks participation because the form of the Mass is “that which obedience to the Lord’s command has received from His Church.…

He who really wishes to believe—in other words, to obey revelation—must obey also in this, schooling his private sentiments on that norm.”59 Furthermore, Guardini warned that when a believer is no longer concerned with fundamental principles, but only with his own personal faith experience, “the one solid and recognizable fact is no longer a body of dogma…but the right action as a proof of the right spirit.… Religion becomes increasingly turned towards the world, and cheerfully secular.”60 Soon dogma itself became a matter of protest, most prominently in the reaction to Humanae Vitae in 1968.

The Council and earlier Liturgical Movement intended something very different from what the “new view” had in mind. On December 25, 1961, Pope John XXIII officially convoked the Second Vatican Council with the Apostolic Constitution Humanae Salutis, in which he expressed the hope that the Council “imbues with Christian light and penetrates with fervent spiritual energy not only into the depths of souls but also into the whole realm of human activities.” Similarly, 25 years earlier, the American liturgical pioneer Virgil Michel, OSB expected that a Christian who “drinks deep at the liturgical sources of the Christ-life,” would “spare no effort to Christianize his environment,” resulting in “a true reflourishing of Christian culture, of the arts and literature, of social institutions formed after the mind of Christ.”61 But today, as Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, has recognized: “We are experiencing conversion to the world, instead of to God.”62 Why? Recall that the Council itself told us that it “would be futile to entertain any hopes of realizing” the goal of active participation and liturgical renewal unless priests and people were first “thoroughly imbued with the spirit and power of the liturgy” (SC, 14).

Spirit of the Liturgy Revisited By the end of 1965, years before the Novus Ordo Missae was promulgated, only a few changes had been mandated for the rite itself. Yet the introduction of other practices not mentioned in Sacrosanctum Concilium had already changed people’s experience of the liturgy. They were designed to imbue priests and people with a “new spirit,” contrary to the one Guardini had proposed. Fifty years later the liturgical reform has not reached its goal, and we experience ever more strongly what Cardinal Ratzinger called “the crisis in liturgy (and hence in the Church).”

This suggests that the new spirit was not what Sacrosanctum Concilium 14 meant.

Re-examining post-conciliar liturgical practices, guided by Guardini and Sacrosanctum Concilium, would perhaps allow today’s Catholics to become imbued with the true spirit of the liturgy as the Council urged. Eliminating those practices not in accord with Sacrosanctum Concilium and this spirit could help people to experience a timetranscending, beautiful liturgy as well as congregational unity which is not merely social but “is accomplished by and in their joint aim, goal, and spiritual resting place—God—by their identical creed, sacrifice and sacraments.”63 And it would no longer be futile to hope, with Pope John XXIII, that through the restored liturgy fervent spiritual energy would penetrate souls, and lead to the transformation of the whole realm of human activities.

Susan Benofy received her doctorate in physics from Saint Louis University.

She was formerly Research Editor of Adoremus Bulletin.

1. Joseph Ratzinger, Feast of Faith: Approaches to a Theology of Liturgy, trans. Graham Harrison, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1980), 61.

2. Ralph A. Keifer, The Mass in Time of Doubt: the Meaning of the Mass for Catholics Today (Washington, DC: National Association of Pastoral Musicians, 1983), 56. Keifer was professor of liturgy at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, acting executive secretary (19721973) and general editor (1971-1973) of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL).

3. Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, trans. John Saward, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000).

4. Page references for Guardini in this paper refer to a reprint edition combining two of Guardini’s books: The Church and the Catholic and The Spirit of the Liturgy, trans. Ada Lane, (New York: Sheed and Ward, Inc, 1953).

5. Ratzinger, Spirit of the Liturgy, 7.

6. Guardini, Spirit of the Liturgy, 121-122.

7. Ibid., 155.

8. Ibid., 156.

9. Ibid., 129.

10. Ibid., 123.

11. Ibid., 141.

12. Ibid., 147.

13. Ibid., 126.

14. Keifer, The Mass in Time of Doubt, 56.

15. Ibid., 65.

16. Ibid., 87.

17. For more on the Liturgical Conference see Susan Benofy, “The Day the Mass Changed–Part I,” Adoremus Bulletin, February 2010. A very large number of people participated in the workshops. In Chicago alone “an initial six-week training program for commentators, lectors and leaders of song involved no less than 11,400 laymen.” See Godfrey Diekmann, “Liturgical Practice in the United States and Canada” in Consilium: The Church Worships, Vol. 12 (1966), 157-166, quotation on 164.

18. These books were said to be “the first and for a long time the only aids made available to guide the celebration in the new rites.” See Gordon E. Truitt, “Gerard Sloyan: Bridge of the Spirit” in How Firm a Foundation: Leaders of the Liturgical Movement, compiled and introduced by Robert L. Tuzik (Chicago: Liturgy Training publications, 1990), 222-299. See especially 295.

19. Both served as liturgical periti (experts) at Vatican II, and long-term members of the ICEL Advisory Committee. McManus was also the first director of the Secretariat of the Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy (1965–1975).

20. In a letter to J. B. O’Connell dated March 3, 1964, Diekmann wrote: “Fred [McManus] and I have been very busy lecturing to groups of priests throughout the country ever since returning from Rome. And the list of such engagements stretches through the next months, until September. Actually, it has been very edifying to discover how willing, and even eager, priests of advanced years are to listen and to learn. If only we can reach enough of them.” Quoted in Kathleen Hughes, RSCJ, The Monk’s Tale: A Biography of Godfrey Diekmann, OSB (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1991), 252.

21. Hovda was also principal author of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy 1978 statement “Environment and Art and in Catholic Worship.” McNaspy was a musicologist and an editor of the Jesuit magazine America.

22. Sunday Morning Crisis: Renewal in Catholic Worship, (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1963), ed. Robert Hovda (imprimatur dated July 17, 1963).

23. Robert Hovda, “Introduction” in Sunday Morning Crisis, 4 (original emphasis).

24. Frederick McManus, “What is Being Done?” in

Sunday Morning Crisis, 45-58.

25. Ibid., 55.

26. Keifer, Mass in Time of Doubt, 60.

27. “Popular devotions of the Christian people are to be highly commended, provided they accord with the laws and norms of the Church…. But these devotions should be so drawn up that they harmonize with the liturgical seasons, accord with the Sacred Liturgy, are in some fashion derived from it, and lead the people to it….”

28. Frederick McManus, “The Future: Its Hope and Difficulties,” in The Revival of the Liturgy, ed. Frederick R. McManus (New York: Herder and Herder, 1963), 203-224 (imprimatur August 8, 1963) Cited passage, 209.

29. Ibid., 212-213.

30. Ibid., 218. Yet as late as 2004, McManus, though regretting that recent Vatican documents had narrowed “the openness of the great council to adaptation and inculturation,” still asserted “no door has been closed.”

See Pastoral Music. October-November 2004, 45-47.

31. Clement J. McNaspy, SJ, “The Sacral in Liturgical Music,” in The Revival of the Liturgy, 163-190. See particularly, 166.

32. Ibid., 167.

33. Ibid., 178.

34. Godfrey Diekmann, OSB, “The Place of Liturgical Worship” in The Church and the Liturgy in Consilium: Church and the Liturgy, vol. 2 (1965), 67-107. See particularly 68. He does not specify where in SC he finds these higher principles. If, in fact, the suggestions he makes in this essay depend on SC it is odd that they were already featured in a church built in the 1950’s: the Abbey Church of St. John’s, which Diekmann helped to plan. See Hughes, Monk’s Tale, 169-175.

35. Ibid., 73-74.

36. Ibid., 75.

37. Ibid., 76.

38. Ibid., 85.

39. Ibid., 98.

40. Ibid., 105.

41. Frederick McManus, “Recent Documents on Church Architecture” in Church Architecture: The Shape of Reform: Proceedings of a Meeting on Church Architecture Conducted by The Liturgical Conference February 23-25, 1965, in Cleveland Ohio (Washington, DC: The Liturgical Conference, 1965), 86-95. Cited passage, 87.

42. Ibid., 94-95.

43. Not only was this interval between promulgation and implementation (September 26-November 29) quite short, but the bishops, who were to direct this implementation, were absent from their dioceses for most of it. They were in Rome attending the third session of the Council, which ran almost exactly concurrent with this interval – from September 14 to November 21.

44. In most places this involved an arrangement not apparently envisioned by the 1964 Instruction: placing a new table-style altar in the sanctuary in front of the old main altar. Since the new altar could appear insignificant contrasted with the older abandoned, but more impressive, main altar this could seem to diminish the significance of the Mass.

45. See the 1958 Instruction from the Sacred Congregation for Rites, De musica sacra et sacra liturgia §14b.

46. See Eugene A. Walsh, SS, “Making Active Participation Come to Life” in People’s Participation and Holy Week: 17th North American Liturgical Week (Elsberry, MO: The Liturgical Conference, 1957), 45-63.

47. See the volume in this program: A Manual for Church Musicians (Washington, DC: The Liturgical Conference, 1964), especially 47-50. See also, Susan Benofy, “The Day the Mass Changed–Part II” in Adoremus Bulletin, March 2010.

48. There was, in fact, an obstacle to having a sung Mass with English liturgical texts at this time. Melodies for texts to be sung by the priest or ministers required approval from the conference of bishops (See Inter Oecumenici §42). Yet it was not until November 17, 1965, that the U.S. Bishops’ Conference approved such settings, which could not be used until March 27, 1966.

(See Thirty-Five Years of the BCL Newsletter 1965-2000, (Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2004), 34.

49. See, for example, in the diocesan paper of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis: “‘Hootenanny Mass’ defended by liturgist,” The Criterion, May 14, 1965, 7.

50. “Liturgical Renewal and the Student Mass,” (An address delivered at the 62nd annual NCEA Convention, April 19-22, 1965) Bulletin: National Catholic Education Association 62, #1 (August 1965), 290-300.

See particularly 295.

51. Guardini, Spirit of the Liturgy, 155 52. Diekmann “Liturgical Renewal and the Student Mass,” 297.

53. See “‘Hootenanny Mass’ defended by liturgist,” The Criterion, May 14, 1965, 7. About the same time Father McNaspy promoted the ‘folk Mass’ for college students.

See “America editor defends ‘folk Mass’” on the same page.

54. Ken Canedo, Keep the Fire Burning: The Folk Mass Revolution, (Portland, OR: Pastoral Press, 2009). There are podcasts which summarize the book and give samples of the compositions in it at https://kencanedo. com/podcasts Canedo is currently a liturgical composer and music development specialist at Oregon Catholic Press.

55. Yet it was performed at Carnegie Hall. Canedo explains that McNaspy organized a concert of Liturgical “folk” music at this venue “to introduce to the public the new musical innovations going on in the Church at the time.” Keep the Fire Burning, 81. A live recording was made of this concert and released on LP. Some tracks from this recording can be heard on Canedo’s podcast “Chapter 9B.” 56. Canedo, Keep the Fire Burning, 18-19.

57. Ibid., 72.

58. Ibid., 71, citing a New York Times article from Feb 1, 1966, “Detroit U Students Protest Ban of Folk-Music Mass.”

59. Romano Guardini, Meditations Before Mass. (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 2013), 101.

60. Guardini, Spirit of the Liturgy, 205.

61. Virgil Michel, OSB, “The Scope of the Liturgical Movement,” Orate Fratres (Worship) 10 (1935-36), 485-490. See particularly 488. Michel was a monk of St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, MN and the first editor of Orate Fratres.

62. Cardinal Gerhardt Müller in Catholic World Report www.catholicworldreport.com/2018/06/26/ 63. Guardini, Spirit of the Liturgy, 147.

Adoremus Bulletin, March 2019

God’s Trunk Show: An Apologia for Glorious, Priestly Vestments

“For the glorious adornment of your brother Aaron,” the Lord said to Moses, “you shall have sacred vestments made. Therefore, tell the various artisans whom I have endowed with skill to make vestments for Aaron to consecrate him as my priest. These are the vestments they shall make: a breastpiece, an ephod, a robe, a brocade tunic, a turban, and a sash. In making these sacred vestments which your brother Aaron and his sons are to wear in serving as my priests, they shall use gold, violet, purple, and scarlet yarn and fine linen” (Exodus 28:2-5).

By Father Michael Rennier

I

have a keen interest in vestments, and I admit I think about them with some regularity. I enjoy the adventure of finding beautiful, antique vestments, researching fabrics, exploring old liturgical catalogs for embroidery designs, and finding, for example, the pattern for a cassock with the perfect number of pleats.

This is all to say, I love vestments.

My own opinion doesn’t really matter, though, and as a priest what really matters is that I am thinking about vestments the way that the Church thinks about vestments. What is really important is that the Church loves vestments, because the way her priests dress at the altar really matters.

Borrowed Robes?

It might seem that fussing over priestly clothing items is a waste of time, or egotistical and vain. Why not simply go to the nearest local clergy store, grab half a dozen black polyester shirts off the rack, mix in a few plastic tab collars, and be done with it? That way, today’s busy priest can save time to focus on the truly important aspects of his ministry, jobs like balancing the parish budget, writing killer jokes for Sunday’s homily, and overseeing the gym renovation.

Let’s assume that some among you do, indeed, consider vestments a bit of an afterthought to the nittygritty of authentic priestly ministry. There was a time I would have agreed with you. The only problem is, at that time, I wasn’t Catholic.

I was born and raised a free-church Pentecostal and received my first theological lessons from a stubbornly iconoclastic religious community. When we went to church, it was in a converted warehouse because, we thought, only indulgent Catholics would waste resources on a fancy church building. In that warehouse was a stage with a pulpit. Behind the pulpit was a cross with no corpus. In fact, there were no images of Jesus or the saints anywhere in sight because only idolaters have graven images in their worship space.

We were encouraged to dress casually, and even the pastor appeared for duties wearing designer jeans and an untucked shirt modeled after the latest fashion trend. After all, only pagan priests wear robes and only legalistic snobs put on a tie to attend church. This seemed right and just to me and I never questioned it.

Until, that is, around the turn of the century when I stumbled into a Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at Holy Family Cathedral in Tulsa, OK. Here, worship was totally foreign to my sensibilities. I encountered prayer

Tailor-made Faith At the time of my conversion, I was living in Tulsa because I was attending a nearby university founded by the famous Pentecostal televangelist, Oral Roberts. It’s funny, I remember walking through the main hall in the classroom building and seeing a model of the Israelite tent of meeting, complete with altar of incense, candles, and gold statues. In class, I studied descriptions and pictures of the way that the high priest dressed in his specific vestments for service in the tabernacle. These vestments looked suspiciously like an alb and chasuble.

I also studied St. John’s Apocalypse in Scripture classes and was familiar with the descriptions of heavenly worship which include incense, chanting, white robes, and at the center of it all, a Lamb that had been slain, a true sacrifice. This is the true origin of the Mass. It is a continuation and development of Temple worship, the very same worship that had been commanded by God in excruciating detail.

The Mass is also an anticipation of and participation with the heavenly worship in the throne room of God. Seen in this context, how could anyone consider that vestments are an extra? Here we have the very seed and flowering of worship and devotion—both examples, that which is laid down for us by our ancestors and that which is held out for us as the worship of the Church Triumphant, are replete with beautiful, extravagant vestments.

man and make him a luminary of the glory of God. It is the law of gift; to the extent we give ourselves away to God in adoration, the more we are clothed in his majesty.

God deserves our gift of beauty, and the faithful are fed by it as with a true spiritual feast. There are many types of vestments that are appropriate, but they all come from the same family tree and share one set of specific virtues—they are beautiful, dignified, and directed solely to the glory of God. When wearing them, the priest as individual recedes and the office of the priesthood comes to the fore. As that other great convert-turned-apologist of the early 20th century Ronald Knox says, a priest must not forget that he is only a priest of the universal Church. There is beauty in being thus chastened, and my vestments remind me daily that the Church does not particularly need me for her survival.

“ The Church loves vestments, because the way her priests dress at the altar really matters.”

This isn’t to say that within our tradition all vestments must look identical, or that old vestments are superior to newer designs, or that the Roman style is better than Gothic style. After all, vestments, like anything in the Church, are in a constant process of adaptation or development. Take, for instance, my biretta. The one I wear is the three-horned model with a tuft on the top.

The biretta is probably a development from a clerical hood, which over time became detached as a skull cap.

The horns may have developed from a need to take the hat on and off during Mass more easily. Children everywhere are in awe of my biretta and ask questions constantly about it after Mass. At first, the wearing of a biretta seems like pure affectation, but the fascination of the children holds the key to unlocking the deeper meaning of vestments—they appeal to the imagination and arouse a sense of wonder.

A child wants to know why the priest wears that hat: and now we’re off and running. The biretta is worn so that it may be taken off. It is an iconographic display by which a servant of the Church, a sacred minister, confronts the grand mystery of how the glory of God paradoxically throws our humble humanity into deep shadow while at the same time raising us up in dignity.

To prepare for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, I dress myself up in the finest head covering to serve as a priest of Almighty God, but at the foot of the altar, a priest is quickly disarmed.

“ Vestments minimize the personality of the individual man and make him a luminary of the glory of God.” Well-suited Paradox G.K. Chesterton explores the paradox of liturgical garb in Orthodoxy, writing, “The modern man thought [St. Thomas] Becket’s robes too rich and his meals too poor.

But then the modern man was really exceptional in history; no man before ever ate such elaborate dinners in such ugly clothes.... The man who disliked vestments wore a pair of preposterous trousers. And surely if there was any insanity involved in the matter at all it was in the trousers, not in the simply falling robe.... Becket wore a hair shirt under his gold and crimson, and there is much to be said for the combination; for Becket got the benefit of the hair shirt while the people in the street got the benefit of the crimson and gold.” In other words, vestments minimize the personality of the individual

AB/GHENT ALTARPIECE DETAIL AT WIKIMEDIA

AB/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

via kneeling and signs-of-the-cross. I saw an image of Our Crucified Lord prominently connected with an altar of sacrifice upon which burned candles—totally inefficient, expensive, gratuitous candles. I saw a priest wearing robes and fancy vestments, and altar boys proudly and diligently going about their work in cassock and surplice. I smelled incense. The light that gently spread across my arms was filtered through stained glass. There was decorative painting, carved wood, and statues of saints. The faithful were bathed in beauty, and beauty was the twitch upon the thread that called me home and converted me.

7

“A throne was there in heaven, and on the throne sat one whose appearance sparkled like jasper and carnelian.

Around the throne was a halo as brilliant as an emerald” (Revelation 4:2-3). Here, the gloriously-robed Almighty extends his hand in priestly blessing.

In exchange, a priest receives a greater gift, which is participation in the priestly ministry of Our Lord. For this reason, a priest must be glorious and he must be set apart. Nikolaus Gihr, in his book The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, writes about a High Priest of the Old Covenant named Simon: “And as the sun in his glory, so did he shine in the temple of God...when he went up to the holy altar, he honored the vesture of holiness” (Ecclesiasticus 50:6,12). Gihr comments, “Now, if God even in the Old Law...prescribed such beautiful, such rich garments for the liturgical functions..., how much more is it the Lord’s will, that His beloved Spouse should appear at the altar robed in magnificence and splendor, whenever she celebrates that adorable Sacrifice and spreads the Table of the Lord.” He goes on, “To the believing eye and mind it would appear as a desecration...to attempt to offer the Holy Sacrifice at the altar in the ordinary everyday dress.”

This point is extremely important. As an individual, sinful man, I have absolutely no place at the altar. My merits have not gained me the ministry. Because the Please see VESTMENTS on page 8

8

Adoremus Bulletin, March 2019

soul and body are inextricably interweaved, and the language of our bodies expresses the disposition of the soul, it would be a highly contradictory statement for me to go up to the altar wearing my own, ordinary clothes. To do so would be to proclaim that I am fit to do so, just as I am. Nothing could be more presumptuous or wrong-headed.

A Weave of Wills Ronald Knox once wrote a book for schoolgirls called The Mass in Slow Motion. In it, he proposes a thought experiment while the priest quietly prays his “Judica me Deus/Judge me, O God” at the foot of the altar.

Imagine, he writes, that you are appearing before a royal court but have no special clothes, “that would put a lid on your misery, wouldn’t it? And that is how a priest feels or ought to feel when he goes to the altar.”

Spiritually speaking, in the depths of his sinful heart he is unclothed, so he absolutely must step into the sacerdotal office of the priesthood and allow God’s mercy to clothe and usher him over the threshold to the altar of sacrifice.

Because of this, vestments even in all their variety follow a similar pattern, and a Catholic priest at prayer is generally recognizable as an “icon of Christ the priest” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1087).

What is a priest required to wear at Mass? What is the minimum? I’m not an expert in ecclesiastical law, but according to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, at least an alb, stole, cincture, and chasuble are necessary for a priest in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite.

But to ask our question in terms of minimum requirements is precisely the wrong way to think about vestments. It won’t do to assume that simply because a priest technically has the right garments on that it doesn’t matter if they are high quality or low, beautiful or ugly. After all, the goal of our worship is not to do the least amount possible, and it isn’t to be efficient. The Mass is playfully—almost unnecessarily—beautiful.

It operates by its own inner logic and creates its own mystical meaning.

Remember, in the service of God nothing is merely exterior, all is figurative of the interior. Which is to say, vestments can preach a homily all on their own with no words. Beauty at Mass is a reflection of the beauty of God. The unspoken homily goes even deeper, too.

We’ve already alluded to it several times in this essay— God deserves glory, his glory shines through sensible things, and the human body is being redeemed. In The Spirit of the Liturgy, Pope Benedict XVI marks the transition from clothing to the body itself, writing of St. Paul, “The Apostle does not want to discard his body, he does not want to be bodiless…. He does not want flight but transformation. He hopes for resurrection.

Thus the theology of clothing becomes a theology of the body. The body is more than an external dressing up of man—it is part of his very being, of his essential constitution.”

AB/LAWRENCEOP AT FLICKR

“ The theology of clothing becomes a theology of the body. The body is more than an external dressing up of man—it is part of his very being, of his essential constitution.”

Sacred vestments that are put into the service of the Church are, by their very definition, a source of humility for a priest. They are the living embodiment of the wish, “He become greater and I become lesser.”

Father Michael Rennier lives in St. Louis with his wife and children. A convert from Anglicanism with his family, he has an MDiv from Yale Divinity School and is a Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of St. Louis. He is associate editor at Dappled Things: A Quarterly of Ideas, Art & Faith, and a regular contributor at Aleteia.

AB/MICHAEL RENNIER

God’s Golden Thread Do some priests [slowly points finger at self] dive too deeply into the minutia of vestments? Maybe.

I’m sure we can all find a prudential line wherein humility crosses over to pride, but it is helpful to recall that sacred vestments that are put into the service of the Church are, by their very definition, a source of humility for a priest. They are the living embodiment of the wish, “He become greater and I become lesser.”

In that wish is the desire to love and serve our Creator the best we possibly can. Vestments are part of priestly ministry, not an afterthought. Beauty converts hearts and souls—I am living proof of that.

If we make a gift of beauty to others through the beauty of sacred worship, we will recognize in priestly vestments an echo of the primordial beauty of God, faithfully witnessed to by the generations of priests, an echo that reverberates and pulls us into the future, drawing our eyes directly to the source of all beauty, the one who spoke creation into existence, Our Lord and Savior seated upon his throne.

In the service of God nothing is merely exterior, all is figurative of the interior. Which is to say, vestments can preach a homily all on their own with no words. Beauty at Mass is a reflection of the beauty of God’s holy name.

Adoremus Bulletin, March 2019

Liturgical Diversity and the Unity of the Church Catechism of the Catholic Church

Liturgical Traditions and the Catholicity of the Church 1200. From the first community of Jerusalem until the parousia, it is the same Paschal mystery that the Churches of God, faithful to the apostolic faith, celebrate in every place. The mystery celebrated in the liturgy is one, but the forms of its celebration are diverse.

1201. The mystery of Christ is so unfathomably rich that it cannot be exhausted by its expression in any single liturgical tradition. The history of the blossoming and development of these rites witnesses to a remarkable complementarity. When the Churches lived their respective liturgical traditions in the communion of the faith and the sacraments of the faith, they enriched one another and grew in fidelity to Tradition and to the common mission of the whole Church.66 1202. The diverse liturgical traditions have arisen by very reason of the Church’s mission. Churches of the same geographical and cultural area came to celebrate the mystery of Christ through particular expressions characterized by the culture: in the tradition of the “deposit of faith,”67 in liturgical symbolism, in the organization of

AB/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Editor’s note: Varietates Legitimae, the Church’s Instruction on liturgical inculturation, was issued by the Holy See on January 25, 1994 and later promulgated March 29, 1994. Twenty-five years later, the topic of liturgy’s comingling with culture remains not only a taxing question in theory but a challenging process in pastoral practice. Adoremus continues to examine inculturation during this anniversary year, this time looking to the Catechism’s brief yet substantial treatment from 1992.

“There remains,” wrote Pope John Paul II in his evaluation of Sacrosanctum Concilium’s implementation, “the considerable task of continuing to implant the Liturgy in certain cultures, welcoming from them those expressions which are compatible with aspects of the true and authentic spirit of the Liturgy, in respect for the substantial unity of the Roman Rite as expressed in the liturgical books” (Vicesumus Quintus Annus, 16; emphasis in original).

fraternal communion, in the theological understanding of the mysteries, and in various forms of holiness. Through the liturgical life of a local church, Christ, the light and salvation of all peoples, is made manifest to the particular people and culture to which that Church is sent and in which she is rooted. The Church is catholic, capable of integrating into her unity, while purifying them, all the authentic riches of cultures.68 1203. The liturgical traditions or rites presently in use in the Church are the Latin (principally the Roman rite, but also the rites of certain local churches,

Continued from NEWS & VIEWS on page 2 instrument of evangelization, because it gives people a glimpse of the beauty of heaven.”

Archbishop Sample explained that universality in music means “any composition of sacred music, even one which reflects the unique culture of a particular region, would still be easily recognized as having a sacred character.” Holiness is “a universal principle that transcends culture.”

There is a lack of understanding and confusion about what music is proper to Mass, the archbishop said, adding, “Not every form or style of music is capable of being rendered suitable.” A Gloria set in a polka beat or in a rock music style is not sacred music, because these styles, however delightful in a dance hall or concert setting, do not have the qualities of sanctity, beauty and universality proper to sacred music.

While all forms of genuine sacred music have spiritual and emotional impact, there is “a necessary divide” between sacred music and “what generally we call entertainment.”

Archbishop Sample reflected on the treasury of sacred music. Gregorian chant should enjoy a “pride of place” in the Roman liturgy, according to the Second Vatican Council, and the faithful should be led to sing in Gregorian chant as far as is proper as a way to participate in the liturgy.

The archbishop acknowledged that Gregorian chant does not presently enjoy pride of place; it is rarely if ever heard. He said this situation must be addressed with “great effort and serious catechesis” to help it more widely become a normal part of the Mass.

Other forms of sacred music which accord with the spirit of the liturgy are not excluded, especially polyphony. Archbishop Sample cited composers such as Palestrina, Victoria, Tallis, and Allegri.

His general guidelines include an explanation of the right understanding of “active participation” in the liturgy.

He said that “popular” sacred music doesn’t mean the music of pop culture, but rather “forms of sacred music suited to the musical abilities of the people.”

Sacred music is native not only to Europe but draws on organic developments among other peoples who are part of the Latin rite. Music that is truly “sacred” in their cultures deserves due consideration to help adapt worship and to help form their attitudes towards religion.

He criticized as erroneous the idea that lyrics alone determine whether a song is sacred or secular.

such as the Ambrosian rite, or those of certain religious orders) and the Byzantine, Alexandrian or Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Maronite, and Chaldean rites. In “faithful obedience to tradition, the sacred Council declares that Holy Mother Church holds all lawfully recognized rites to be of equal right and dignity, and that she wishes to preserve them in the future and to foster them in every way.”69 Liturgy and Culture 1204. The celebration of the liturgy, therefore, should correspond to the

He praised musicians who worked hard to accomplish the goals of the Second Vatican Council.

At the same time, he said much of his letter may contravene their musical formation.

This contradiction should not be interpreted as criticism of “those dedicated church musicians who have offered their service with a generous heart and with good will.”

Even parishes and missions without a large talent pool and other resources should work to provide sacred music that fits best with their abilities.

Pre-recorded music may not substitute for actual musicians. At the same time, music serves the needs of the liturgy, it does not dominate. Music “should not seek to entertain or draw attention to itself or the musicians.”

The location and self-presentation of musicians in the church building is also important to consider.

They and their instruments should never be located in the sanctuary, except for cantors and psalmists at the appropriate time. Where musicians are visible, they should strive not to draw attention to themselves.

Bishops and their cathedral parishes have a special duty to ensure archdiocesan liturgies are “exemplary” in adhering to musical norms. Musical standards should have their fullest practice at the Chrism Mass, ordinations, and other liturgies the archbishop celebrates with the clergy and the lay faithful.

Archbishop Sample’s pastoral letter considers many other aspects, from church acoustics to the importance of silence.

“Silence in the liturgy allows the community to reflect on what it has heard and experienced, and to open its heart to the mystery celebrated,” he said.

Every parish should have a sung Mass every Sunday, offered “with consistency and with the greatest care and attention the community can give it,” the archbishop said.

The pipe organ should have “pride of place” as the instrument “most in harmony with the spirit of the Roman liturgy.” Despite its diminished use, Catholics must be willing to invest for the future. The archbishop encouraged all parishes to include the pipe organ in their repertoire.

Other musical instruments must truly contribute to the beauty and sanctity of the Mass. Instruments like electric guitars “are not suitable for accompaniment at Holy Mass,” and the rock drummer set is “never appropriate.”

Archbishop Sample entrusted the effort to improve sacred music to St. Cecilia, the patroness of church

9

genius and culture of the different peoples.70 In order that the mystery of Christ be “made known to all the nations…to bring about the obedience of faith,”71 it must be proclaimed, celebrated, and lived in all cultures in such a way that they themselves are not abolished by it, but redeemed and fulfilled:72 It is with and through their own human culture, assumed and transfigured by Christ, that the multitude of God’s children has access to the Father, in order to glorify him in the one Spirit.

1205. “In the liturgy, above all that of the sacraments, there is an immutable part, a part that is divinely instituted and of which the Church is the guardian, and parts that can be changed, which the Church has the power and on occasion also the duty to adapt to the cultures of recently evangelized peoples.”73 1206. “Liturgical diversity can be a source of enrichment, but it can also provoke tensions, mutual misunderstandings, and even schisms.

In this matter it is clear that diversity must not damage unity. It must express only fidelity to the common faith, to the sacramental signs that the Church has received from Christ, and to hierarchical communion. Cultural adaptation also requires a conversion of heart and even, where necessary, a breaking with ancestral customs incompatible with the Catholic faith.”74 66. Cf. Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, 63-64.

67. 2 Tim 1:14 (Vulg.).

68. Cf. Lumen Gentium, 23; Unitatis Redintegratio, 4.

69. Sacrosanctum Concilium, 4.

70. Cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium, 37-40.

71. Romans 16:26.

72. Cf. Catechesi Tradendae, 53.

73. John Paul II, Vicesimus quintus annus, 16; cf.

Sacrosanctum Concilium, 21.

74. John Paul II, Vicesimus quintus annus, 16.

musicians, and the Blessed Virgin Mary, Immaculately Conceived. “May the renewal and reform of sacred music in the Archdiocese of Portland lead us together to a beautiful and worthy celebration of the sacred mysteries of the Holy Mass, for the glory of God and the sanctification of all the faithful,” he said.

St. Paul VI’s Feast to Be Celebrated May 29

By Courtney Grogan

Vatican City (CNA/EWTN News)—The Vatican announced on February 6 that Pope St. Paul VI’s feast day will be celebrated annually on May 29 as an optional memorial.

“Before and after becoming Pope, Saint Paul VI lived with his gaze constantly fixed on Christ whom he considered and proclaimed as a necessity for everyone,” Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, commented on the papal decree.

With this declaration, published February 6, the pope who guided the Church through the Second Vatican Council will have his memorial inserted into the renewed General Roman Calendar and liturgical books that he promulgated in 1969.

The date of the memorial, May 29, is significant as the ordination anniversary of Paul VI—then Giovanni Battista Montini—to the priesthood in 1920.

With the papal decree, the Vatican also published the new texts for the memorial of St. Paul VI to be added to the Roman Calendar, Missal, Liturgy of the Hours, and Martyrology.

“The Collect prayer resonates with all that God accomplished in his faithful servant: ‘who entrusted your Church to the leadership of Pope Saint Paul VI, a courageous apostle of your Son’s Gospel,’ and it asks: ‘grant that, illuminated by his teachings, we may work with you to expand the civilization of love,’” Sarah said.

The second reading in the Office of Readings for Paul VI’s memorial is taken from passages of his homily during the last public session of the Second Vatican Council on December 7, 1965.

Paul VI was canonized by Pope Francis on October 14, 2018, along with Oscar Romero, and five other new saints. As pope, Paul VI oversaw much of the Second Vatican Council, which had been opened by Pope St. John XXIII, and in 1969 promulgated a new Roman Missal. He died in 1978, and was beatified by Pope Francis October 19, 2014.

10

Adoremus Bulletin, March 2019

THE RITE QUESTIONS

What changes were made to the Tridentine Q : Missal before 1962?

A

LETTERS Grateful Guidance

Dear Adoremus Staff, Thank you for all your efforts to further our beautiful liturgy in our Catholic Faith.

As a Catholic for all my 92 years I love the Mass. I love my God. I have followed your work for years, and it helped me in my Ministry to the Homebound, which did not have much developed 30 years ago. Your Adoremus guided me.

Thank you, —V ivian Freeh, Tucson, AZ

Four Goals of Prayer

I have received the January 2019 issue and it’s so enriching. Thanks, and continue with the good work of evangelization so that in our worship we can be able to meet our four goals of adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, and supplication. God bless all participants and stakeholders of Adoremus Bulletin.

— S ilvester Gikandi, via email

A Good Lead

After reading the January 2019 issue of the Adoremus Bulletin, I hope that the English-speaking countries don’t change the translation of the Lord’s Prayer from “Lead us not into temptation” to “Abandon us not when in temptation.” To me, that is actually worse. It is awkward to say, and implies that God would abandon us in temptation unless we ask Him not to.

I much prefer the original translation from the Pope’s original comments that in English it would be “Let us not be led into temptation”—it is easy to say and is nothing but a petition from us to God begging Him not to allow us to be led into temptation.

—P aul Melka, Fallston, MD

Missive on Missals

The missal currently used for the Extraordinary Form is that of 1962.

I grew up before 1962. What missal was used in the 1950’s? How was it changed in 1962?

—W illiam White, Lombard, IL Adoremus: An excellent question, one we are grateful to have answered by Father Aaron Williams of the Diocese of Jackson, MS. Please see next column.

: Though Pope Saint Pius V, in his apostolic constitution Quo Primum, promised the wrath of Saints Peter and Paul upon anyone who would attempt to change the Missale Romanum of 1570, the Tridentine Missal did in fact undergo many minor (and sometimes even major) alterations before it reached the 1962 form in use today in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.

In 1605, Pope Clement VIII recognized that in the mere thirty-five years since the publication of the Missale Romanum many editorial changes were made by independent publishers without permission, particularly in relation to certain ancient scriptural citations from the Old Latin versions. Publishers were rendering these texts according to the official Vulgate edition. Pope Clement ordered that these texts be restored to their more ancient versions. However, in 1634 Pope Urban VIII reversed this decision by ordering that scriptural texts in the Missal reflect those of the Vulgate edition. Though no rubrical changes oc-

curred, he also ordered some rubrics be re-worded to be more understandable.

No further changes were made to the Missal itself until 1884 when Pope Leo XIII ordered a revision of the calendar.

By that time, the calendar was becoming so full of feasts that many saints were being omitted entirely—being superseded by other feasts on the same day. In addition to the removal of these feasts, Leo XIII also ordered a restoration of rubrics which, though never changed in the official versions, were being altered in local printings particularly in France and the surrounding regions. Leo XIII also established the custom of the traditional ‘Prayers after Low Mass’ which, though not part of the Missal itself, were nevertheless mandatory.

In 1920, Pope Benedict XV ordered a major revision of the Breviary and a sizable alteration of the Missal, which was envisioned by Pope St. Pius X, though never initiated before his death. This revision included the addition of several feasts, and a rubrical reform of the calendar, particularly relating to the practice of seasonal commemorations and the

restoration of Lenten ferial days. Other feasts were added in the 20th century including Christ the King on the last Sunday of October (1925), the elevation of the Feast of the Sacred Heart to that of a first class (1932), and the Votive Mass of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Eternal High Priest (1935).

Pope Pius XII made perhaps the most significant changes with his reform of Holy Week in 1955, but he also introduced several other feasts including the Assumption, the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and St. Joseph the Worker. Permission was also given for the usage of vernacular hymns during low Mass, and the reading of the lections in the vernacular.

And, of course, in 1962, Pope St. John XXIII issued a new edition of the missal which added the name of St. Joseph to the Roman Canon and removed the term ‘perfidious’ from the Good Friday intercession for the Jews.

–A nswered by Father Aaron Williams, Diocese of Jackson, MS

Q : A re there still litanies approved for use in public prayer?

A

: Litanies have been a part of public and private prayer for millennia. Litanies are “repetitive prayer form[s], usually characterized by the announcement of varying invocations (e.g., lists of divine titles, names of saints) followed by a fixed congregational response.”1 Anyone who prays the Liturgy of the Hours during Easter Week knows well the litany-like praises of the three young men (Daniel 3:57–88) which are on the Church’s lips daily.

During the religious revolutions of the 16th century, litanies multiplied, but were often “in poor taste and the result of [a dimly-lit] piety.”2 In order to rid the Church of such impious litanies, Pope Clement VIII decreed that “only the more ancient litanies contained in the Breviary, Missal, Pontifical and Ritual, as well as the Litany of Loreto were approved for the use of the faithful.”3 Clement’s decree “was renewed in 1727 and in 1821. A decree, however, of the Congregation of Rites, dated 23 April 1860, allowed the private use of litanies sanctioned by the Ordinary.”4 Nevertheless, a strict distinction between litanies for public recitation and litanies for private devotion has been blurred in the minds of many since the postconciliar period. Does this distinction still hold?

The Manual of Indulgences provides some clarity. The section dealing with “Novenas, Litanies, and the Little Offices,” restricts

the indulgence to those “approved litanies”5 that it enumerates: “The Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus [1587], the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus [1899], the Litany of the Precious Blood of Jesus [1960], the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Litany of Loreto) [1587], the Litany of Saint Joseph [1909] and the Litany of the Saints.6 In addition, the Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy assumes the category of approved litanies by making note of when litanies were “approved for the whole Church.”7 Yet, while this list is authoritative, it does not appear to be exhaustive. For example, the Litany for the Coronation of Images of the Blessed Virgin Mary is itself contained in a liturgical book8 and so is, by definition, established for public use.9 According to this liturgical logic, perhaps it is best not simply to adopt the language of “approved litanies,” but rather to look to Clement VIII’s liturgical hermeneutic: all the litanies “contained in the Breviary, Missal, Pontifical and Ritual…[are] approved for the use of the faithful.”10 In this way, the public litany flows from the public worship of the Church, the liturgy. Unfortunately, not all of the approved litanies are found in the liturgical books, so we’re back to “approved litanies.”

Regardless, there also exists the problem of a text for public use that lacks an official translation. Many of these litanies exist in unapproved and

often elderly translations that include some irregular and infelicitous renderings. For example, the Litany of the Most Precious Blood speaks of the “Blood of Christ, bringing

forth Virgins,” and then of God the Father being “appeased by [Christ’s] Blood.” Pace Liturgiam Authenticam 27–29, these translations risk obscuring the mysteries of consecrated virginity and Christ’s propitiatory sacrifice and they also risk leaving the litanies unused and even unheard of. It seems certain that a renewed application of the great principles of Liturgiam Authenticam would give greater clarity and greater life to these approved litanies.

Perhaps the litanies will be in the International Commission on English in the Liturgy’s pipeline soon…after the breviary?

— Answered by Jeremy Priest Adoremus Bulletin

1. M. A. Clarahan, “Litany,” in New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., 14 vols. (Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2003), 8:599.

2. Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy: Principles and Guidelines (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2001), no. 203n249.

3. Ibid.

4. J. H. Maude, “Litany,” ed. James Hastings, John A. Selbie, and Louis H. Gray, Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics (Edinburgh; New York: T. & T. Clark; Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1908–1926), 80.

5. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Manual of Indulgences (Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2006) 22.2.

6. Cf. Manual of Indulgences 22.2.

7. See Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy: Principles and Guidelines (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2002), no. 171, 178, 222.

8. Ordo coronandi imaginem beatae Mariae Virginis, Editio Typica, Typis Polyglotis Vaticanis 1981, n. 41, 27–29. Cited in Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy: Principles and Guidelines, no. 203.

9. See Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy: Principles and Guidelines, no. 203.

10. Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy: Principles and Guidelines, no. 203n249.

11

Adoremus Bulletin, March 2019

Adoremus Thanks Benefactor ($5,000 +) Anonymous

Millennium ($1,000+) Mr. Kenneth M. Haught Morgantown, West Virginia Anonymous

Jubiliee ($500+) 3 Anonymous Sustaining ($200+) Mr. & Mrs. Leslie Benofy St. Louis, Missouri Mr. Eric A. Burzynski Chantilly, Virginia Most Rev. Liam Cary Redmond, Oregon Dietlinde M. Doyle Manassas, Virginia Mr. Jerome C. Fritz Bay Village, Ohio Mrs. Sharon Gembrowski Freeland, Michigan Edmund & Jeanette Gieske Cedar Park, Texas Dr. Richard J. Joachim Blue Ridge, Virginia Fr. Joseph R. Johnson St. Louis Park, Minnesota Mr. & Mrs. Timothy J. Mickunas McAllen, Texas Mrs. Cecilia Miller Pearl River, Louisiana Rosalind E. Mohnsen Malden, Massachusetts Deacon Stephen M. Najarian New Brighton, Minnesota Mr. Joseph H. Orth Bellevue, Kentucky Paul & Petrine Pongratz Auburndale, Wisconsin Mr. T. E. Salapatek Canton, Michigan Jimmy & Julie Vecera Burleson, Texas The Rafael Madan & Lilian Casas Foundation Oakton, Virginia Patron ($100+) Mrs. Diana J. Bruce Simi Valley, California Deacon Patrick T. Bruen Dearborn, Michigan Dr. Horst Buchholz St. Louis, Missouri Mr. Mark W. Buyck, Jr. Florence, South Carolina Miss Karen T. Cence Falls Church, Virginia Mr. Edward F. Clark Belmont, Massachusetts

our donors for special gifts received in the past months. We are deeply grateful for your financial support of the work of Adoremus.

MEMORIAL FOR:

Rev. Matthew R. Compton Chicago, Illinois Mr. James J. D’Arcy Trenton, New Jersey Deacon & Mrs. Ed & Jeanne Danko Ocean View, Delaware Ray & Christine Fernandez Savannah, Georgia Mrs. Deborah L. Gambert Burke, Virginia

William J. Doyle — Wife Fr. John Grigus, O.F.M. Conv. — Therese Ruedig Helen Hull Hitchcock — Consuelo Hitchcock Helen Hull Hitchcock — Horst Buchholz Patricia Spychaj — Marvin Spychaj TO HONOR All priests who have served Holy Trinity Church — Gary Smith

Miss Susan M. Geisler Mundelein, Illinois Miss Maria Gloria San Francisco, California Mrs. Penelope C. Greene Somerset, Pennsylvania John & Kara M. Guinee North Andover, Massachusetts

Our special thanks to our Friends, Members, and to all our faithful monthly donors. May God bless each of you for your generosity. A Mass is said for all our donors each month.

We appreciate your prayers, and we remember you in ours.

Mr. & Mrs. Richard J. Heinen Rosemount, Minnesota Barbara & John Herlihy Chillicothe, Ohio

Dr. & Mrs. Robert C. Rice Front Royal, Virginia

Rev. Brian F. Van Fossen Williamsport, Pennsylvania

Mr. James Hitchcock St. Louis, Missouri

Mrs. Lillian Roeser Park Ridge, Illinois

Mr. & Mrs. George C. Hottinger St. Paul, Minnesota

St. Philip Benizi Shallowater, Texas

Dr. & Mrs. Francis X. Van Lieshout Little Chute, Wisconsin

Mr. & Mrs. Dean H. Kenyon Roseburg, Oregon

Mr. Marvin Spychaj Alexandria, Virginia

Helen H. Krone Olympia, Washington

Mr. Joseph Swain Hamilton, New York

Dr. Arthur M. Kunath Fort Thomas, Kentucky

Mr. & Mrs. Frank X. Tooker Escondido, California

Deacon & Mrs. James & Lyne Welch Wilmington, North Carolina Mr. Bradley L. Williams Indianapolis, Indiana 11 Anonymous

Mr. Russell B. Lundsgaard Glenview, Illinois Mr. Burke Mees Eagle River, Alaska Phyllis J. Mees St. Louis, Missouri Mr. Michael J. Melliere Dublin, Ohio Dr. & Mrs. Patrick A. Metress Annandale, Virginia Mr. C. Kenneth Miles Mobile, Alabama Mr. Michael P. Morrell Staten Island, New York Mrs. Monica Mylod Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida Mr. & Mrs. Frank Nuar Manassas, Virginia Mr. Kevin Patton Matthews, North Carolina Msgr. Sabato A. Pilato Gardenia, California Mr. Mark R. Pilon St. Paul, Minnesota Mr. & Mrs. John Quin Arlington, Texas

SIGN UP AT ADOREMUS.ORG FOR AB INSIGHT, THE MONTHLY E-NEWSLETTER OF ADOREMUS

12

Adoremus Bulletin, March 2019

New Book Explores a Year of Living Liturgically

By Alexis Kutarna The Catholic All Year Compendium: Liturgical Living for Real Life by Kendra Tierney. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2018. 360 pp. ISBN: 978-1-621641599. $13.60 paperback.

Editor’s note: The 50th Anniversary of St. Paul VI’s motu proprio, Mysterii Paschalis—February 14, 1969—passed by without notice. Yet, this letter set in place the substantial reform of the liturgical calendar. Indeed, the reform of the liturgical calendar is arguably one of the most significant of the liturgical reforms to take place after the Second Vatican Council. More than just a way of organizing time, “the celebration of the liturgical year ‘enjoys a sacramental force and a particular efficaciousness to nourish the Christian life.’” St. Paul VI wrote that the reform of the calendar had “no other purpose than to permit the faithful to communicate in a more intense way, through faith, hope and love, in ‘the whole mystery of Christ which she unfolds within the cycle of a year.’”

Yet, the hopes for the reformed calendar have not always born fruit. In her introduction to The Catholic All Year Compendium: Liturgical Living for Real Life, Kendra Tierney laments that most Catholics have only the “vaguest notion that the liturgical year even exists, let alone any idea of how to incorporate those days and that rhythm” into their lives. Tierney encourages people to begin by starting where they’re at, which for many means a renewed focus on living Sunday as the Lord’s Day, echoing St. Paul VI’s aim “to restore Sunday to its original dignity, considered by all as ‘the original feast day.’” From there, the liturgical year draws a sharper focus on baptism, celebrating baptismal anniversaries and emphasizing the centrality of the Paschal Mystery of Christ as the fundamental aspect of each person’s identity in Christ. In these and many other examples, the publication of The Catholic All Year Compendium— and the review offered here by Alexis Kutarna—is a fitting way to realizing more concretely the hope of St. Paul VI’s Mysterii Paschalis.

n the domestic Church, we extend and propel our family’s life of prayer from and towards the celebration of the liturgy, “a radiant expression of the paschal mystery, in which Christ draws us to himself and calls us to communion” (Sacramentum Caritatis, 35). What can we learn from the sacred liturgy, the rhythm and structure of the Church’s life of prayer, and how do we welcome it into our home? What does the Catholic liturgical imagination offer to us in inspiring us to pursue a deeper relationship with Christ in our family life?

Catholic writer and blogger Kendra Tierney offers a helpful compendium for the Catholic family looking for inspiration to incorporate the cycles of the Church’s liturgical year into their domestic Church. While the book consists primarily of a compilation of her blog posts in one volume, it contains a wonderful theological richness as she walks us through the liturgical seasons, devotions and prayers. In fact, rather than being a book merely about activities, crafts, and recipes for the liturgical year, Tierney provides a powerful catechetical tool and prayer guide. Written from the perspective of her own personal experiences as a wife and mother engaged in a rich Catholic family life, she includes the practices that her family finds the most beneficial, as well as her family’s trials and errors.

The advice she offers in her book is simply to try what works for your

I

family, and offer ideas that have been tested to show that it is truly possible, as she says, “for a regular family to live a full Catholic life in the midst of today’s world with today’s demands and expectations.” This book is not a guide to being a “Pinterest-perfect” Catholic mom with Instagram-worthy liturgy crafts, but a tested guide to a real-life-messes-and-all experience of the domestic Church centered on the liturgy, celebrating our faith.

It’s Liturgy Time!

Tierney writes from the perspective of an American family whose liturgical home is in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, and the book is arranged accordingly with this liturgical calendar.

Outlining the seasons beginning with Advent, she weaves together the interacting temporal and sanctoral cycles. It would be possible to read the book following the liturgical year, or to pick up at any point and try something new.

Practically speaking, bolstering our liturgical living in the domestic Church will necessarily concentrate on the liturgy of the Church as the principal model for prayer. Prayers, blessings, litanies, and special intercessions are taken first from liturgical sources. These are paired with other unstructured prayers, devotions, and stories, and as the author relates, the prayers are lived out in various pious activities for the family. Some of the related ideas include foods that are traditional to a particular feast day, hymns, and conversation topics for the dinner table.

For the celebration of the Epiphany of the Lord, for example, she begins with an explanation of the feast day and the dates on which it is celebrated, and she also provides the explanation for why it is not always celebrated on January 6 (with the revision of the calendar in 1969). The feast is connected to popular imagination (such as the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” and Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night), and several ideas are offered for consideration: a White Elephant party, Epiphany presents, the King Cake tradition (a pastry named for the three kings or wise men who visited the infant Christ), and of course the traditional Epiphany house blessing. (For the record, inspired

by Tierney’s book, we made a King Cake, also known as galette des roes, and invited a dear priest friend over for dinner and a house blessing—which were only a few of the many more ideas to think about for next year!) Included in the book is a prayer text for the marking of the lintel with the blessed chalk.

Not all of the activities are centered on food, however. For February 22, the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, she includes conversations with children about what it means to be the pope, and even instructions for writing him a letter to the Holy Father—with proper salutations and mailing address included!

During the Lenten season, Tierney covers not only common practices but ideas to incorporate prayer, fasting, and almsgiving into the home. From the traditional—and literal—“burying of the Alleluia” to Tierney’s own 66 ideas for things to give up (more than just cake), the author covers a range of ideas for keeping this season holy. Most importantly, the examples provided are practical and theologically rich and centered on liturgical concepts.

Is Your Calendar Full?

The domestic Church, in mirroring the activity of the universal Church, sees the peak of her activity in the liturgy, which includes more than Sunday Mass.

Tierney explores the sacramental life, with the celebration of baptismal days, a renewal of baptismal promises on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, and other ideas to remind the family of the centrality of these moments in their life of faith. On the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, nothing teaches about the Eucharist better than spending time with him. Teaching children about the Real Presence requires them to be in his presence, which can be done during the traditional practice of a Eucharistic procession on this day, by staying after Mass, or by visiting an adoration chapel together as a family on a regular basis.

These simple practices reinforce the connection between the sacramental life and the family.

Tierney offers a simple six-step process for getting started, as gradually as is needed in your family: start with the liturgical living you are already doing, begin celebrating baptismal anniversaries, add name days, remember Fridays and Sundays, start observing days with well-known traditions (St. Nicholas, for example), and observe solemnities in the home.

The central portion of the book is rich in content and the appendices are as well, including a thorough explanation of days of fasting and abstinence, the practice of indulgences, the process of canonization, and a quick reference guide to the feast days covered in the book. Sources include the documents of the Church: the Catechism of the Catholic Church, General Instruction of the Roman Missal, Code of Canon Law, instructions from the USCCB, and many more such resources. Magisterial sources are supplemented by the writings of the saints, hymns, and other prayer texts.

This compendium provides a well-

researched, grounded, and prayerful guide to begin family traditions in your own home, based on the liturgical calendar, connecting Sunday morning to the rest of the week. This sort of concentrated effort to live out the liturgy daily not only leads to a fuller expression of the faith in the home, but also encourages families to carry the faith into the world. As Pope St. John Paul II wrote in Familiaris Consortio, “An important purpose of the prayer of the domestic church is to serve as the natural introduction for the children to the liturgical prayer of the whole Church, both in the sense of preparing for it and of extending it into personal, family, and social life” (61). Kendra Tierney delivers a loving and delightful practical resource to Catholic families seeking inspiration for true liturgical living.

Alexis Kazimira Kutarna earned a Master of Arts in Liturgy at The Liturgical Institute at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary.

She holds a master’s and bachelor’s degree in music, as well as a Performer’s Certificate, and is currently working on a PhD in Liturgical Studies with a concentration in Church Music at the University of Vienna. Alexis has worked with singers of all ages, having served as a parish music and liturgy director, and as the Director of Music at St. Mary’s Seminary in Houston, TX. She teaches the summer chant course for the St. Basil School of Gregorian Chant, courses on the liturgy and liturgical music at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, TX, and is currently the music teacher at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic School.

Most important is her vocation as wife and mother to two little girls.